Dr. Colm Henry:

Yes, of course we are concerned. We have learned that lockdown caused secondary harm not just to older people, as has been mentioned, or mental health but also due to later presentation of disease. People did not present to screening programmes and to early cancer diagnostic programmes. We are also aware of the impact on child health. A very useful study performed in conjunction with the faculty of paediatrics showed that the lockdown caused harm not just to children's education but also to their health and well-being. Education is an important health medium for children because the immunisation programmes are carried out there and also screening. In addition, up to one fifth of referrals to Tusla are from schools.

We are concerned, so what we are doing now is reopening services as well as trying to keep the virus suppressed, which is a considerably more difficult task than we faced in April when we, as it were, wiped the slate clean just to suppress the virus alone. We realise, not just from the position in Ireland but also from international experience, that there is later presentation of some serious illness, such as cancer, and we also appreciate the danger of diagnostic tunnel vision - that in focusing on testing for Covid-19 alone we might ignore other, potentially more serious, infectious disease. Hence, from the beginning of March we have worked very closely with practitioners in primary care in making sure that when they are screening people for Covid testing they also, as guardians of the nation's health, screen people for other important disease.